For whatever reason, I didn’t get around to writing this right away which is a darn shame because I can’t ever remember all the details when I wait longer than a couple hours. Oh well.

I do remember that my sister and I played Sid Hoffman or Sid Frenchman. It’s a heck of a game. If you’d like to see how it’s played you can watch this silly Strongbad email. You can even play the game if you click on “that game” at the end of the email.

As I’ve mentioned before, people often ask to join my sister and me on our hikes. We are totally open to people joining us. Lots of people have asked, but no one has ever actually come with us…until now. The one and only, wonderful and beautiful Lacey Wroblewski hiked with us today. I got to know Lacey because she is besties with one of my favorite people in the entire world: the magnificent, the glorious, the extraordinary “Doctor” Becky Curry. It was awesome to have a tag-a-long.

We met at my sister’s house, as usual, except we met at a set time instead of “whenever we wake up.” I was late, of course. This is a new thing for me. I have been on time to everything I’ve ever done basically my entire life until about three months ago. I’m not sure exactly what happened three months ago, but timeliness is no longer one of my priorities. Sorry world.

The ladies hopped in my car, we stopped at Subway (of course), and blasting the best of Bjork we headed east on 84. I didn’t really look at the exact mileage and the hike was quite a bit further away than most of the ones we have done recently. It was a bit of a drive. The trail head is basically in Hood River. You take the exit and drive just a little over a mile to the parking lot. We paid our fee and got to it.

It was so so so so cold. We did not expect it. Lacey, who is an amazing photographer, brought her fancy-pants camera along and took brilliant pictures. My sister and I mostly just died of cold. It was so cold. Because we were in the shade of the gorge, it basically never got warm. There was a layer of frost that coated the ground and all of the amazing desert plant life as we walked shivering in the shade. After a couple miles, the paved trail hits the trail’s main feature, the two tunnels. They are amazing, a mixture of rock and wood, nature and man. Lacey took incredible pictures of them.

After we made our way through the tunnels, which were much warmer due to lack of wind, we were starting to realize we would never be warm.  Just when we were giving up hope, we rounded a corner and there it was, a sunny patch! We got in really close to the rocks to avoid the wind and sat in the glorious sun scarfing our Subway in near silence. The warmth and food were so good. We were energized.

We kept heading east and finished the in part of the hike in no time. We were worried about the way back, heading back into the shade, but it wasn’t bad. It really wasn’t. There were a lot of people out on the trail. It was a great hike with great company.

For information about the Mosier Twin Tunnels Hike click here.